A Breakthrough (With Elevation Gain) in Everyday Ramblings

Out and about this morning I took this with my phone that is why the sizing is a bit off.

The best gift I could possibly imagine for my birthday was having not just the day off but this whole week off.

I finished, finally finished The Girl on the Train in the audio book format. It is so well done, with the three different voice artists reading the three different female voices but the story was so relentlessly dark and none of the characters are sympathetic. What a bleak dysfunctional world it portrays.

I also had trouble with the descriptions of the slide into and manifestation of alcoholism. It is why I can’t stand to watch (or couldn’t now that it has wrapped up) Madmen.

Empathy I have, compassion I have, affection and understanding I have, but I have very little tolerance for the actual presentation of this disease of addiction. But the story was compelling and I wanted to know how it ended so after months of listening to the book in little bits and pieces I managed to listen to the whole last section over two days. And I do feel a sense of accomplishment.

I also had some time to do a little recreational magazine skimming and found this wonderful wonderful restored villa in Havana in Cuba.

Like the woman in the story this is my dream house. I can imagine it full of fascinating people making and talking about art and things that matter. I also found the fact that they had to do a three-way swap to get it very interesting.

Turns out Most Honorable had never been on the aerial tram in my neighborhood so after hiking up many many secret stairs (and with the help of a most accommodating mailman) we found the castle house (no chocolate bunny this time) took pictures, then hiked back down in a big scenic loop which involved looking at many expensive houses hanging off the side of the hill with very clever supports and then up Marquam Hill to the tram loading platform and took it down to the south waterfront and had lunch.

It was a lovely sweaty way to spend a big chunk of the day and I got to show off my two favorite staircases.

And today Kes and I went to the art museum to see the traveling show of pieces from the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris. I had read quite a bit about the school but it is not open to the public so I didn’t see it when I was in Paris.

This was mostly student work, prize-winning paintings from the 1700’s and 1800’s but also some works by masters that the school had acquired for the students to emulate. There is a simple line drawing of a woman’s head that Raphael did that is just breathtaking.

I was most interested in the sculpture and anatomy drawings though because I have been thinking a lot about spinal curves lately for my teaching. The theory seems to be that we, unlike our ancestors, have so much back pain because we don’t do the sorts of things as part of our daily life that keep our cores strong and supple and support our backs and keep us stable and in a relaxed upright position.

The gift shop was a dangerous place but for my birthday I asked Kes to buy me a lovely frilly froth of a scarf in greens. I will have to wrap it around my neck after I leave the house because of curious kitty claws but in a way that makes it an even more precious gift. Illicit almost. :)

A couple of Christmas’s back I gave Kes a gift card to a very high end yarn shop up here in Portland and she had yet to spend it so today we went there after the museum and she picked out this lovely cobalt blue yarn and a pattern for a pretty summer sweater. The staff was incredibly knowledgeable. It was all like a foreign language to me.

Then we went to the Veggie Grill because I wanted… well I know this is weird, but fried cauliflower and French fries for my birthday. Let them eat cake, I’ll take cruciferous vegetables jammed packed with nutrients that help us stay healthy any day. I had a Portobello mushroom sandwich too. Yum. Even though it was all healthy it was a lot of points too. Oh well.

So it has been a relaxing and rejuvenating few days and the cats managed to play and play some more and then play again.

I can honestly say I don’t miss work a bit. Not one little bit. As much as all the difficulty and drama have consumed me over these last years I’d say that is a true breakthrough.

Last updated June 19, 2015